Eldamil
by Lady Of Embers
Summary: Had he not joined the Mythic Dawn, he would never had met her.   Because Eldamil gets no love. And the Dunmer and the Altmer make a good pairing.


To the Summerset Isles Altmer, angry at the loss of the Ayleids' Empire, wealth and estates after reading a particularly heated book on the subject of the Cyrodiilic Empire, and on arrival in Cyrodiil, found the Mythic Dawn to be the perfect solution.

Their promise was the return of the old ways, of when the Nine would be crushed and the ancient Ayleid cities would return and they, Dagon's humble servants, would be the ones revered. It seemed like a dream to him.

Mankar Camoran himself was present at his initiation, and he gleefully sacrificed the Argonian on the slab to Dagon. He was always hungry for knowledge, always seeking Mankar's teachings and devouring books on the Daedra Lords. His rising through the ranks was nothing short of sensational, and many praised him, saying that Dagon had hand-picked him to be in Mankar's inner circle.

Then they attacked Kvatch.

* * *

><p>He handed Dagon the citizens' lives on a silver platter, made them sacrifices. The few that escaped, he let be as a sign to the others, a sign of Dagon's return. They patrolled the city, cutting down beast, men and mer alike. They searched the houses, burned the unbelievers out of the basements. He knew Dagon would be proud of his efforts.<p>

They entered one basement, swords at the ready. He walked on ahead…

…and was ripped to shreds by the survivors. All he saw on their faces was pure anger, pure hatred, tears. One of the survivors screamed that she had watched him kill her sister.

His soul, floating to Paradise, saw his comrades cut down the heathens, and so was avenged. But that girl-she was a Dunmer with dark red hair-haunted his mind, as he wandered Paradise. How could an unbeliever have so much zeal, so much passion, when standing up for the wrong thing? Because Dagon's way was undoubtedly the correct way. He should know. He had ascended to Mankar's Paradise. He was one of the chosen.

Some Paradise. Even he, Mankar's favoured, was not permitted in Gaia Alata, nor was he spared the attacks by the various Daedra. He began to regret his actions, began to think over the survivors. They had been clinging to their lives, because they had hope. They had killed him, because they utterly _refused_ to have their future turn out the way he wanted it. It confused him. It bothered him. Mankar noticed-he always noticed-and sent him to the Grotto. There, he was forced, under the eyes of the watchful kynmarchers, to torture others like him, others who had felt regret at joining the Dawn, and had been stabbed by conscience.

Sometimes he refused. They'd stab him then, and leave the Master's Immortality to clean him up. Sometimes he fought back, and they'd chain him to a wall for hours on end covered in sword wounds, or dangle him over the lava and lower him in slowly, so that he got to know what it was like to be in one of those cages. Then they'd let him up, chuck his robes at him, walk away snorting.

* * *

><p>He wished then that he'd never sat down and read the book about the Ayleids. He wished then that he'd joined the Psijics on Artaeum, or the Mages' Guild, or <em>somewhere<em> that would have kept him away from inflammatory reading material and the Mythic Dawn. It got worse as the months dragged on, the screams and the agonised shrieks and their _faces_, their faces that were full of agony and torment. He thought he was going mad, sometimes, and he'd start talking to his fingers for company, or lie back and ignore the screeches and imagine the powder blue sky of the Summerset Isles above him, instead of the rock that served for the ceiling of the cave.

Then she came along.

* * *

><p>When she turned up, he thought for a moment that the Dunmer from Kvatch had caught up to him, but then he shook his head. This Dunmer was lithe and wore black robes with a black hood. Her hair was jet-black. When he walked over to her she pulled out a sword and killed him before he could say anything, but he got up. So she killed him again. Finally, he managed to persuade her to stop killing him, and told her what he wanted her to do. Her brow furrowed; she clearly suspected a trap, but she did as she was told and escaped from the cage when he freed her. Ten minutes later, she came flying around a corner, slaying Orthe and looking at him expectantly. He merely hid a smile, and they found their way out.<p>

Sunshine hit his face for the first time in…four? Five? Six? He didn't know how many months had passed. As he stretched, she killed Daedra, and he hid his smile again when she started nonchalantly cleaning her blade, as though nothing had happened.

It was only twenty minutes later, when her Healing touches turned into something else entirely, and they were lying skin-on-skin in the grass, her little gasps sending shivers down his spine, that he became glad he _hadn't_ joined the Psijics, or the Mages' Guild, or kept out of libraries and so away from Cyrodiil. How, otherwise, could he have met her? Even though he was dead, even though all this could ever be was happening now, he was glad.

* * *

><p>Paradise now destroyed, watching her from the Gates to Aetherius, he saw her and the Septim heir running into the Temple of the One, the Septim becoming a dragon, and he witnessed the inspiring power of the Nine as Dagon was banished back to Oblivion. Turning away, he prepared to enter Aetherius and leave Tamriel…<p>

…And got a very large shock indeed when he turned, tripped, fell flat on his face and looked up to see her standing, rather amused, by his sprawled body.

"What am I doing here?" he asked, confused. She knelt down by him, and tilted his chin up so that his eyes met hers.

"I'm not giving you up that easily, Eldamil."

Half an hour, one bed and a journey back to Skingrad later, Eldamil was glad she hadn't.


End file.
